


storm clouds over eden

by Yuu_chi



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 09:37:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19461298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuu_chi/pseuds/Yuu_chi
Summary: In Eden, Crowley sees Aziraphale’s wings for the first time and he thinks,Oh.





	storm clouds over eden

In Eden, Crowley sees Aziraphale’s wings for the first time and he thinks, _Oh_. 

That’s really it. Oh. _Oh_. There’s nothing else _to_ think, nothing else that encapsulates the depth of his distraction, his fascination, his fixation. 

_Oh._

Once, Crowley knows he had wings like that; as white as the sky is blue, a gift, freely given. These days his wings are scar tissue, are indelible marks of who he was and what he did. They are not the sort of wings one looks and thinks, breathless and wondering, _‘Oh’._

If Aziraphale notices him staring, he is kind enough not to say. Likely he considers it nothing more than the strange behaviour of a serpent or the worse yet behaviour of a demon. It is not true, of course. Most demons cannot stand to behold an angel for more than a moment at a time, too repulsed by the sheer divinity of them. 

Crowley is not most demons in the way he was not most angels. He does not correct him. 

Aziraphale shelters Crowley from the oncoming storm with barely a thought, wings aloft to see them through the rain, and Crowley watches through the delicate edges of his feathers as the clouds pass overhead. 

Black on black on white. Something to behold at the start of the world. 

in Eden, Crowley falls just a little bit in love.

.

It takes thousands of years before Aziraphale learns to truly be himself around Crowley. He waits through each and every century patiently, watching as Aziraphale’s guard is slowly whittled away piece by piece with barely a kind word and a smile. 

He would never tell him so to his face, but impressing Aziraphale is simple. It would be funny if it wasn’t so devastatingly understandable. Despite what everybody seems to think, Crowley remembers heaven as if it were yesterday, and he remembers the casual cruelties of it just as well. 

Humans have declared it the High Renaissance, and it doesn’t take a genius to see that Aziraphale is positively drunk on it; enchanted by the ethereal works the tiny humans with their tiny human lives have wrought with nothing more than their hands and their thoughts. 

“Can you imagine?” he says to Crowley, hands folded neatly behind his back as he stares up at the endless expanse of the Sistine Chapel’s freshly painted ceiling. “Living only such a short life and using it to create _this_?” 

The only reason Crowley can even stand to be in the chapel’s walls is because he committed a particularly heinous deed earlier that day. The hellish pride of it keeps him from feeling as if he’s walking on coals, but it’s a very near thing. 

The only reason Crowley is here _at_ _all_ is because Aziraphale had asked him to be. 

“I mean,” Crowley says, shifting uncomfortably, “isn’t really true to life, is it?” 

Aziraphale swats his arm, but he’s barely paying attention. He looks like he wants to carefully pry the paintings from the walls and take them home where he could look at them always, keeping them near at hand so only he could appreciate them because then they would be appreciated _right_. 

It is a sentiment Crowley relates to deeper than he would like. Aziraphale’s standing there staring at the ceiling and Crowley is standing there staring at Aziraphale; both of them reverent in their fixation of their own private angels and their worshipful adoration of them. 

Crowley says, “Seems a little narcissistic, don’t you think?” 

He expects Aziraphale’s long-suffering look, but instead Aziraphale smiles at him. The light streaming in from the high windows makes the pale shock of his hair almost as golden as the angels that climb the rafters above. “It’s something, don’t you think? That of all the ways they could see us, this is what they chose.” 

There is no ‘us’. Not anymore and also not yet; not in the way Crowley hopes one day there may be. He can never quite tell if Aziraphale forgets that Crowley is fallen or if, in moments like this, he elects not to care. 

Crowley does not want to remind him. Instead, he remarks, “Adam is rather more white than I remember.” 

Aziraphale tilts his head, observing from an angle. He seems amused. “He is, isn’t he?” 

They stand in silence for a beat. The chapel burns like a simmer at the back of Crowley’s mind. It’s a rather small price to pay for the contentment of the moment. He looks at the ceiling, at the countless cherubs and seraphs that look nothing like he’s ever seen. 

Sometimes, he thinks of Aziraphale as he had been in Eden; the angel who had been gifted a flaming sword and gave it away to help the helpless, the angel who’d sheltered a demon with barely a thought. 

In a moment of bravery, Crowley says, “Yours are better, you know.” 

Aziraphale turns to him. “My what?” 

Crowley clears his throat. It echoes horrifically in the empty chapel. He thinks of black storm clouds bleeding through white feathers. “Your wings,” he says. “Just your wings, angel.” 

Aziraphale stares at him. Crowley does not return his gaze. If one looks hard enough, and Crowley really is looking very hard, they can make out every minute brushstroke that covers the walls. The silence stretches so long that Crowley thinks he wouldn’t be surprised to find that all of humanity has passed them by outside, but then Aziraphale turns away. 

From the corner of his eye, Crowley can see him smiling. As soft as the feathers hidden on his back. 

“Yes,” Aziraphale says quietly. “Yes, I rather think your right.” 

.

It is 1919 and their agreement is in full force. The world has survived a particularly harrowing run in with War, and Crowley is still feeling the pleasant aftereffects of a century asleep. They’re quite drunk in that way they often are when they meet for anything longer than a secretive rendezvous in St James Park. 

The park they’re at this time isn’t St James. At this point, Crowley isn’t certain where it is at all, only that it’s deserted at this hour of the night, as black and silent as the void that holds the stars he once helped create. They’ve been passing an endless bottle of wine back and forth since they arrived. The grass they’re sitting on is lovely and fresh, dewy from recent rain, and there are leaves from the branches above them crowning Aziraphale’s head that he has not, and likely will not, notice.

Their hands brush as Aziraphale passes him the bottle, and Crowley says, “After everything they’ve survived, you didn’t think a little infighting was going to be what did them in, did you?” 

“No, no, of course not,” Aziraphale assures him. He’s leaning back on his hands, uncaring of the grass stains blooming on his well-kept trousers. “But you know every once in a while, you have to wonder. They’re all so… so…” 

Crowley spills a not inconsiderable amount of the wine down his shirt. When he’s sober he’ll miracle it away, but for now he lets it stay. “So stupid?” 

Aziraphale bats his knees. The glancing touch of his fingertips makes Crowley smile. “Don’t be like that. You know that’s not what I meant.” 

“It isn’t?” Crowley asks. He passes the bottle back and Aziraphale takes it. “You’re not mad they’re squandering Her gift?” 

Aziraphale makes a contemplative noise around the rim of the bottle. His mouth, Crowley notices, is wet and shiny. “No,” Aziraphale says. “I don’t think She would be either. A gift is a gift; you don’t intend to decree what the recipient should do with it.” 

Crowley knows Aziraphale is probably thinking defensively of his lost sword. Crowley is not. Crowley is thinking about how his own wings used to be as white as Aziraphale’s once upon a time until quite suddenly they were not. 

“That’s not my experience,” Crowley says, the wine making him honest. He plucks idly at the grass, staring fixedly at the way it rubs green into his fingertips. “You don’t get to keep all the gifts that you get.” 

Aziraphale falls abruptly silent. He can hear the distant sounds of late-night London, but it’s all very far away when compared to where they are. Nothing can touch them right now, nothing can even come near. That’s not just wishful thinking either, because Crowley has been quietly driving away idle humans since they toppled down to the grass and decided to stay. Aziraphale would be mad at him if he knew, but Crowley so very rarely gets to see him like this that he would squander all his miracles if that’s what it took. 

“Do you...” Aziraphale says, speaking as abruptly as he’d fallen quiet. “Do you - that is to say…” 

Crowley allows himself to look up. Aziraphale is rolling the bottle between his palms, but his eyes are studying Crowley intently. “Do I what, angel? Do I regret it?” 

“No,” Aziraphale says. “Do you miss it?” 

Crowley is momentarily taken aback. For a second he cannot stand to think about it and then a moment later he concedes that he’d rather think about it than wonder. The time in which he’d had his wings was immeasurably short when compared to the time in which he has not. When he thinks about it, he realizes what he misses is not in fact his wings at all; it is what those wings had meant. 

“I don’t,” he says. “I’m a demon. Can’t miss something that divine. Against the rulebook.” 

Aziraphale does not look convinced. “It’s okay if you do, you know. I would.” 

It’s the wine. Crowley’s not usually so careless, so loose with the inevitable affection that has existed longer than most of the known universe. It’s the wine that makes him say, “I’d miss your wings too.” 

Aziraphale asks, startled, “You would? You haven’t even seen them since Eden.” 

Crowley shrugs. He squints up at the dark sky. “What does that matter?” 

Aziraphale is silent a moment more and then he says, “Would you like to?” 

Crowley slides his glasses down to stare at him properly. “Would I _what_?” 

“Would you like to see them,” Aziraphale says, as earnest and unselfconscious as if he were just offering Crowley something as small as a borrowed book and not the very thing Crowley has been thinking about for endless millennia. 

Crowley is momentarily struck dumb. Given the quicksilver off his tongue, it isn’t a state he’s accustomed to. “You’d show me?” 

Aziraphale smiles at him so brilliantly that Crowley’s throat goes dry. “Of course I would,” he says. “It’s no trouble at all.” 

He holds out the bottle to Crowley and he takes it automatically, too busy staring to pay any attention whatsoever. Aziraphale rubs the back of his neck and shakes out his shoulders. Crowley watches as he takes a deep breath, ribcage expanding, and then lets it out again. 

The wings do not sprout from his back so much as they suddenly just seem to exist. Crowley, who is infinitely familiar with the pocket spaces in which angels and demons store most things uncomfortable within the limited boundaries of human existence, is not surprised by their sudden appearance. What he is surprised by is everything else. 

They’re big, caging them both in effortlessly, and flawlessly white, exactly as Crowley remembers them. The far tips brush against Crowley’s cheek as Aziraphale gently flexes them, adjusting to the sudden reality of it. The brief flicker of familiar softness against his skin is enough to render Crowley completely immobile, hardly daring to breathe in case he drives it all away. 

“There,” Aziraphale says, satisfied. “What do you think?” 

“What do I…” Crowley doesn’t know if he’s truly capable of thinking at all right now. Tentatively, he raises a hand towards the closest wing but pulls up short. “Can I…?” 

“You may,” Aziraphale says, and the indulgent way he smiles at Crowley tells him that perhaps Crowley isn’t being nearly as subtle as he really should be. Right now, that doesn’t feel all that important. 

Carefully, Crowley strokes the very tips of his fingers along the breadth of Aziraphale’s wings. There are not words in any language that exists to describe how it feels; reverential, heartachingly soft, both as fine as china and as powerful as an earthquake. It feels like watching storm clouds roll in over Eden.

Aziraphale lets out a breath so quiet that Crowley nearly doesn’t hear it. When he chances a glance at him, Aziraphale is staring somewhere off in the distance, eyes glassy but head tilted back towards where the wings erupt from his spine. Emboldened, Crowley strokes a hand through the feathers, following the curves and contours. The heat of it warms more than just Crowley’s freezing hands. Beneath his fingertips, Aziraphale shivers.

It takes everything Crowley has to pull his hand away, knotting his fingers together in his lap to keep them from wandering. “Thank you,” he says, as stoically as he can. 

Aziraphale clears his throat and keeps his gaze turned towards the park. “You can keep going. If you like.” 

Crowley wonders if this is what a dream feels like. He wants to ask Aziraphale if he’s certain but even drunk he doesn’t think he could stand the embarrassment. Crowley was not built for grand displays of emotional intimacy and right now he doesn’t want to push his fragile limits. 

This time he runs both hands along Aziraphale’s wings. Careful, slow, methodical. Memorizing every feather, every touch. Aziraphale relaxes into his hands as if it is the only natural thing to do, and Crowley is so overwhelmed he feels as if he might combust, so he does the only thing he can think of and says, as nonchalantly as he can manage, “Not sure how heaven would feel about letting a demon get his grimy little hands all over you.” 

Aziraphale replies, “Weren’t you the one who said nobody ever has to know?” 

Crowley grins and it feels downright maniacal. His heart is hanging on by a mere thread. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I was.” 

They sit there, Crowley’s hands full of feathers and affection, long after the furious white of the morning sun unravels the black sky.

.

Crowley cannot say for certain when it is that Aziraphale comes to love him only that, eventually, he does. 

He’s not as good at hiding it as Crowley is. Lack of practice. Or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t care to. Whatever it is, at some point between Eden and now, Crowley ceases to be alone. By the time Armageddon skips them by, Crowley can say with an astounding degree of confidence that whatever he and Aziraphale have, it’s mutual.

They haven’t talked about it. Likely they should, but after six thousand years Crowley feels no rush. If he held his tongue through the end of the world, he can stand to hold it a moment more. 

They’re back in Tadfield, visiting the former(?) Antichrist and all the ambitious miracle workers that kept the world from falling. Anathema’s kitchen had not been built to comfortably hold four children, a pair of young adults, and two eternal beings, but they manage. Anathema has not yet realized that Aziraphale quietly coaxed her walls out a further few inches and Crowley cannot wait for when she does.

The kids are far too young to drink so they stick to tea, brewed to perfection by Aziraphale’s talented hands, and Crowley manages to refrain from turning his darjeeling to wine. The rewarding hand Aziraphale sets on his knee beneath the table tells him that his uncharacteristic act of benevolence does not go unnoticed, and Crowley hides a smile in his cup.

“It’s just strange, isn’t it?” Newt says, as if they haven’t already talked the apocalypse half to death. “I mean, I keep thinking that surely with everything that happened that’s all that would be on the news for _months,_ but it’s barely been a week and there’s… nothing.” 

“That’s just how reality is,” Aziraphale says. “It’s got so much going on in it already it hasn’t got room for all the things that could have but didn’t happen.” 

Newt does not look like he entirely understands. Crowley is unsurprised. Between Anathema and Newton, it’s clear which of the couple had the brains. 

“I’d have liked to keep Atlantis at least,” Adam says mournfully, picking at the mostly empty bowl of chocolates Anathema keeps on the table. “I didn’t even get to visit.” 

“You could probably wish it back if you wanted,” Crowley says, and then winces as Aziraphale pinches his knee.

“But,” Aziraphale says, “you probably shouldn’t. Best not tempt fate.” 

“You’re angels, aren't you?” Pepper asks. “Do you even believe in fate?” 

“Well,” Aziraphale says, floundering. “That’s -.” 

“I’m not an angel,” Crowley reminds them, half to spare Aziraphale. “I’m from downstairs. Nothing holy about me.” 

“I suppose that’s true,” Pepper concedes. Beside her, Brian sneaks the last of the melting chocolate into his pockets. Wensleydale has been asleep for the better part of an hour now, listing into Adam’s side. Nobody but Crowley seems to have noticed. “You’re probably a better demon than _he_ is an angel.” 

Amused, because he would have thought Aziraphale was the sheer embodiment of all the positive shiny feelings humans thought constituted an angel, Crowley asks, “What do you mean?” 

“Well,” Pepper says in a voice like she’s preparing to impart great wisdom, “he hasn’t even got wings, has he?” 

Crowley snorts into his tea. Beside him, Aziraphale looks both hurt and offended. 

“That’s not true,” Adam protests. “He does. I’ve seen them!” 

“You have?” Anathema asks, surprised. “When?” 

Adam frowns. “You didn’t see them?” 

Anathema shakes her head. “I wish I had,” she sighs. “What were the like? An angel’s wings?” 

Adam goes quiet, thinking about it seriously. Pepper stares at him with rapt fascination. Beneath the table, Crowley slides his hand atop the one Aziraphale has on his knee, fingers almost but not quite lacing. Aziraphale is strangely silent. 

After a moment of stretching silence Adam says, “They were amazing.” 

Crowley’s heart swells. Beside him, Aziraphale gives a small, pleased smile. 

Turning to Crowley, Adam says, “You had wings too. I remember that. I saw them.” 

Crowley’s heart no longer swells. It plummets. His shoulders tighten and so does his grip on Aziraphale’s hand. He smiles broadly, peering over his glasses at the children so they can see the bright yellow of his eyes. “A little bit different than his, I’ll bet.” 

Adam meets his gaze unfalteringly. For a moment, his human facade slips and he looks like a being every bit as eternal as Crowley. There’s a glimmer or something dark and red in his eyes. “Not so different,” Adam says.

Before Crowley can say anything else, Aziraphale’s hand turns beneath his own, slipping their fingers together. He squeezes, looking right at Crowley with an expression superbly tender. “Not different,” he says. “Gorgeous.” 

Crowley stares at him. Their joined hands feel achingly heavy atop his knee. Not for the first time in their endless acquaintance, he finds himself completely and utterly at a loss for words. The soft warmth in Aziraphale’s eyes says he understands, and Crowley can’t bring himself to look away from it. 

Across the table, Pepper says, “Oh, _barf_. If you guys are just going to sit there and make eyes at each other we’re going home.” 

Crowley wrenches his gaze away to scowl at her. “You should be going home anyway. What time is it? Don’t you kids have school or something?” 

Pepper rolls her eyes, shoving her chair back and getting to her feet. “Not that it matters to you considering you’re a _grown-up,_ but it’s summer holidays. We can stay up as late as we want.” 

She says ‘grown-up’ as if it’s the most scathing insult she can think of. Given that he’s an ageless demon, there’s neither anything particularly “grown” or “up” about him, but he knows better than to pick a fight with an eleven year old, especially one who’s given names are Pippin Galadriel Moonchild and thus is probably even better at winning fights than Crowley is at picking them. 

“That’s almost certainly not true,” Anathema says sternly, getting to her feet. “Come on, I’ll walk you all back. It’s hard enough getting your parents to trust me without sending you home alone in the middle of the night.” 

Newt scrambles to his feet. “I’ll come too.” 

Crowley, sensing their cue, slaps the table and goes to stand up, but not before giving Aziraphale’s hand a final squeeze. “We’ll be off then.” 

“Oh,” Anathema says, twisting to glance disappointedly back at them. “You don’t have to -.” 

“It’s alright,” Aziraphale reassures her. “We should be getting home anyway. I was planning on opening up the shop tomorrow, after all.” 

Crowley knows he was planning on doing no such thing but doesn’t correct him. 

“Alright,” Anathema says, shepherding the children to the door. Wensleydale totters along, barely awake. Crowley wonders if his parents have ever let him stay up later than eleven PM a day in his life. “But you must come back to visit again soon, okay?” 

“Of course,” Aziraphale agrees easily. “So long as you’d have us.” 

It takes the better half of ten minutes to get the children collected and organized and out the front gate. Crowley waves the lot of them off from beside the Bentley, watching with burgeoning sympathy he wouldn’t have thought himself capable of as Newt fruitlessly tries to keep Brian from jumping in every rain puddle along the footpath as they go. 

“Well,” Aziraphale says, fingers tapping lightly on the roof of the car. “Shall we?” 

.

They drive back to London in dark and silence. The car plays Queen ever so quietly and Crowley lets it be, a distant background noise long grown comforting and familiar. From the corner of his eye he can see Aziraphale serenely watching the passing scenery outside the window, the flickering midnight shadows casting feathers of black along the hollows of his face. 

Crowley fixes his eyes back on the road and does not look away again, even when Aziraphale gently passes a thumb along the back of the hand he has resting on the gear shift. 

They pull up out front of Aziraphale’s shop, the street quiet and uncharacteristically deserted. Crowley parks the car and climbs out with him, both wordless in their understanding. Crowley pauses only briefly to secretly brush a reassuring hand over the Bentley’s roof before following Aziraphale to the door. 

The flat that Aziraphale keeps atop the shop is different from the store below in only one factor, and that factor is that it contains even _more_ books, which is a feat that Crowley hadn’t thought possible until he saw it with his own eyes. Aziraphale is in the tiny kitchen when Crowley climbs the stairs, rearranging the creaking stacks on the dining table to make room for the lightly chipped wine glasses in his hand. 

“Here,” Crowley sighs, reaching out to lift several priceless first editions out of harms way. 

“Thank you,” Aziraphale says, relieved. He holds up a bottle. “Riesling?” 

Crowley squints at the aged label and finds it satisfactory. “It’ll do.” 

Crowley gently relocates the books while Aziraphale pours. He sets them on an already viciously overburdened shelf and uses a minor miracle to keep it from toppling the way humans probably use duct tape. He settles them carefully, frowning when he notices an old photo frame sitting at the back. He reaches for it, leaving fine fingerprints in the dust. 

“Oh,” says Aziraphale from behind, startling him. He hands Crowley his glass and Crowley takes it automatically. Aziraphale looks terribly fond. “I’d forgotten about that.” 

Crowley looks back to the photo. It’s the Ritz, he realizes. Freshly opened, the fine china and antique furniture rendered lovingly in black and white. Crowley and Aziraphale sit at their favourite table, tea half-finished between them, Aziraphale smiling, a little stiff in that way you had to be to get a decent photo back then, and Crowley thoroughly amused. 

It’s been a hundred years and staring at this photo sends Crowley careening back as if it were only yesterday. And here it sits, framed on Aziraphale’s shelf, standing proud as day. He wonders how long it’s been here. Longer than just the short term of their sudden freedom, clearly. Possibly so long as this store has stood. 

Aziraphale takes it from his hand, swiping a thumb across the grimy glass. “I could probably stand to rehome it somewhere nicer now that there’s no chance of a surprise inspection from above,” he muses, glancing around. “If I just moved some things, surely…” 

Crowley stands there, wine undrunk in hand, staring at him hopelessly. Aziraphale glances back, and their eyes catch. Surprise flickers over his face, and then drains away into fondness. “Oh, my dear,” he says, gently placing the picture back where it’d come from. “Really, now.” 

Crowley can’t think of what to say. Aziraphale sets aside his glass, and when he reaches for Crowley’s he lets him take it easily, slipping from his loose fingertips. Aziraphale’s hands replace it, his palms warm against Crowley’s as he steps in closer. “Is this okay?” he asks, as if there is any other answer Crowley would ever give. 

Helpless, Crowley says, “Angel.” 

Aziraphale smiles at him. He reaches up, hand to Crowley’s cheek. “I know, I know,” he says, and kisses him. 

Kissing Aziraphale is very similar to loving him in that it comes to Crowley incredibly easy; effortless, filling him with the kinds of emotions that would get him disbarred from practicing evil under any good demonic judge. After a moment so long that Crowley feels the weight of it throughout his whole being, Aziraphale pulls away. Crowley lets him, but it’s a near thing. His hands have landed on Aziraphale’s waist at some point, and he breathes out as steadily as he can manage. 

“Well,” Aziraphale says, rueful. His cheeks are almost as red as his mouth. “I’m beginning to think we should have done this earlier.” 

“So long as we’re doing it now,” Crowley says. He skates one hand up Aziraphale’s back, following the dip of his spine, pressing at the knot where he knows his wings sit. 

The look Aziraphale gives him is wry. “You’re not subtle.” 

Crowley smiles at him, and he can feel the sharp edges of his teeth creeping in. “Do you mind?” 

“For you?” Aziraphale asks, taking Crowley’s hand. “Never, dear. Never.” 

Aziraphale’s bedroom is no more tidy than the rest of his flat, but at least the bed is free of clutter. Truthfully, Crowley doesn’t mind the stacks of books teetering about everywhere there’s space for them, threatening to collapse inwards at the faintest hint of provocation. It’s very Aziraphale, and Crowley would never expect nor want anything else of him. 

Together, they take off Aziraphale’s jacket, and then his vest, and finally - finally - his shirt. His bow tie is lost amongst the sheets at some point, and Crowley is much too distracted to worry about that. He crowds Aziraphale up against the headboard, smoothing his hands along the wealth of his naked skin, collecting it greedily beneath his palms, and Aziraphale rises into it easily. 

“Crowley,” he says, hands catching at Crowley’s wrists but not stopping him. 

“Hmm?” 

“I want…” he trails off, letting out a breath as Crowley kisses the hollow of his throat. “Together?” 

Crowley pauses, a cold wave washing down his spine. He goes to pull away but Aziraphale’s grip holds him tight. “Angel -.” 

“I don’t know what you’re scared of,” Aziraphale says, soft. “But I want to see them, I promise you.” 

“I’m not scared,” Crowley says, bristling. “I’m a demon, I don’t -.” 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says again, firmer this time. “Please. It’s been a long time.” 

Aziraphale so rarely asks him for anything that it hits with all the gentleness of a truck. Still, for a moment he hesitates, but inevitably he doesn’t have it in him to say no, just as always. 

“Alright,” he says. “Alright. Let’s just…” 

Aziraphale smiles at him, and the hands on Crowley’s wrists slide up his arms to his shirt. “We can stop whenever you want.”

“I don’t want to stop,” Crowley says, exasperated. “I just want to get on with things. Are we doing this or not?” 

It’s clear Aziraphale doesn’t buy his attitude for a second, but it’d been a fairly weak showing. Crowley’s hands shake as he works on his own buttons, but Aziraphale’s hands are steadier, guiding him effortlessly with the patience of a lifetime of trust. 

Crowley’s shirt slips from his shoulders. His hands slide back to Aziraphale’s waist. “Ready?” 

“Whenever you are, my dear.” 

For a moment, Crowley experiences a very real moment of fear that he doesn’t actually remember how to do this. He’s never had to, not in this form, not in this reality. He’s never wanted to, and it never occurred to him that Aziraphale would want that either.

The moment passes. It’s there, as easy as breathing. Crowley’s fingertips dig into Aziraphale’s skin and he closes his eyes for a beat as he feels the forgotten brush of feathers along his naked back. 

Beneath him, Aziraphale says, like a revelation, “Oh. _Oh_.” 

Crowley opens his eyes. Aziraphale is looking up at him, past him, to where Crowley’s wings are casting shadows along the length of the bed. He reaches up, and when his fingertips light upon the edges of Crowley’s wings it feels like every beautiful thought Crowley has ever dared to have condensed down into one untouchable moment. 

“Oh, Crowley,” he says. 

Aziraphale’s wings are fanned out on sheets below, white on white. Crowley sinks his fingers into the feathers without a second thought, and Aziraphale arches into it with a comfortable sigh, unselfconscious in his enjoyment. 

Carefully, Crowley settles down until they’re pressed together, skin on skin, Crowley’s wings above and Aziraphale’s below, crookedly encasing them, soft and warm. The intimacy of it all is almost paralyzing, and Crowley feels dazed. 

Aziraphale’s hands skates up his back, over the ridges in his spine where his wings bloom. “This is…” 

“Yeah,” Crowley says. “I know.” 

He’d thought they might go further, but rather suddenly he doesn’t want to. It’s too much too quickly, and after millennia of struggling to slow his pace for Aziraphale’s sake, Crowley has become accustomed to progress made in inches rather than leaps. 

Aziraphale’s hand strokes lazily along his back and then out along his wings. Crowley knows immediately that without having to be told Aziraphale understands completely. He presses his face into the crook of Aziraphale’s neck, breathing in the familiar scent of him, and feels so overwhelmed with adoration he’s nearly dizzy. 

“Do you want to go to sleep?” Aziraphale asks. 

Crowley shakes his head slightly. “Can we just…” 

He feels Aziraphale’s smile against his cheek. “Of course, my dear. Of course.” 

They stay like that. Curled together, wings out, impossibly close. For the first time in as long as he can remember, Crowley truly does not want to sleep because the idea of missing so much as a moment of this is utterly intolerable. He lays his head on Aziraphale’s chest, stroking his fingers through his feathers, watching the ripple of white against his fingertips. 

He’s so distracted that it takes him a moment to notice something is amiss. A amid Aziraphale’s feathers as they flutter through Crowley’s fingers. Frowning, he reaches towards it, pushing aside the impeccable down of Aziraphale’s wings. Gently, Crowley lifts his hand up.

There, resting against his fingertips, is a tiny black feather. 

He takes in a deep breath. Holds it. Lets it out again. 

_Not so different,_ Adam had said. 

_Gorgeous_ , Aziraphale had said. 

Crowley wants to curl his hand into a fist, fold the feather out of existence with the sheer force of his will. He wants it to burn, to vanish, to never have been. He wants it to never be again. He thinks, mostly, of the first time he’d seen these wings, watching the black roll through them from above. Black on black on white.

Aziraphale stirs, one eye cracking open. “Alright, dear?” 

Crowley lets the feather slip from his fingers. It vanishes, lost among the overwhelming white. It feels like saying goodbye.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, we're alright, angel.” 

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is enormously dedicated to my good pal kise who championed it the whole time all the while never knowing what i was planning on doing with the ending. thanks buddy, and sorry. 
> 
> tumblr: glenflower  
> twitter: @doingwritebyme


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